MistLock

Open your project in a MistLock-managed development container with one click.

Proof of concept. The backend serves placeholder environments: a Python dev container with your project as the workspace. Local and WSL folders are supported.

VS Code must be open in your project folder: the environment is written inside it.

System Requirements

MistLock builds on the Dev Containers extension; install it first, MistLock offers to open its page when it is missing. Docker must be installed and running where your project lives (under WSL, Docker Desktop with WSL integration for your distribution, or Docker Engine inside it) before MistLock can open an environment — see the Dev Containers system requirements for the supported Docker setups on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Usage

Open the MistLock view from the activity bar. It lists the environments (the Mists) in two sections, Downloaded (already in your project) and Available. Use the buttons on the row of a Mist:

• Open Mist, at the top of Downloaded once your project has a Mist, runs Dev Containers: Reopen in Container. If your project has more than one dev container configuration, pick the one named MistLock: <mist>. Also in the Command Palette as MistLock: Open Mist.
• Show Mist Documentation opens the Mist's README, which explains how to use the environment. It works on available Mists too, so you can read what a Mist offers before downloading it.
• Download Mist writes an available Mist to your project.
• Sync Mist downloads a Mist again, bringing it up to date.
• Delete Mist removes the Mist from your project.

Downloaded Mists open without an internet connection.

Mists are managed outside a container. Once the project is open in a Mist, the MistLock view shows the Current section instead: the services of the Mist.

• Open Service UI, on the row of a service with a web UI, opens it in the browser.
• Expand a service to see its environment variables and their values in the container. Click a variable to copy its value, or use Copy Environment Variable Name and Copy Environment Variable Value on its row.

In any other dev container, the MistLock view only tells you to open the project outside it.

A Mist is written to .devcontainer/mistlock-<mist>/ in your project. Nothing else in .devcontainer/ is touched, so a dev container you already had keeps working.

The Mist is made of plain Dev Containers files: commit them to share the environment with your team. Sync Mist overwrites the Mist folder, so changes made there by hand are lost.